Shop Class: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

As the students enter into the class room they find that, for once, it looks like a normal shop room. Except for the fact that Mac's desk is laden down with a whole bunch of sugary snacks (Cookies, Twinkies, etc.) and shiny objects.

Mac cheerfully spends the first part of class going over the use and safety of all the shop equipment before talking about the assignment.

"Even though we had a extermination team come through here last week, there's always a chance that there are still some gremlins around or that they will come back. So today's assignment is to build a device that will entice and trap a gremlin in a humane fashion."

"All the materials you would need to make such a device are located in the supply room. For bait feel free to use any of the snacks or shiny objects on my desk."

Comments

Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

Have at it folks...

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky went with what he knew about traps. He retrieved some wire mesh and timber from the supply room. He created a rectangular prism frame. Wire mesh was then worked around all four long rectangular sides and one of the square sides and stapled into place.

Separate to the cage, Kawalsky worked on a thin flap door covered in the same wire mesh to attach on hinges to the front of the cage. He fixed a piece of aluminium into the cage, attached to the sides as the pressure pad. He then rigged it so that the pressure pad was connected to the front flap by fishing line. After all that was set up, he tested the pressure pad. Pressure on the pad led to the flap falling shut, but not staying in place.

Fifteen minutes later, both the cage frame and the flap had a makeshift latch system. It wasn't foolproof, but it would do the job most of the time. He tested it again, but it didn't work. He fiddled with the latch, tried it again and got it to work. Kawalsky then retrieved cookies from the table and put it into place as bait. Cookies worked best, in his opinion, because the smell was the strongest of all the sugary snacks.

He reopened the trap and set it into place, ready for grading.

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

Mac gave the trap a quick test and nodded satisfied. "Looks good Kawalsky."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

John thinks about this assignment for a few minutes.

Deciding to be a little inventive, John retrieves two large, old tires from around the workshop. He sets them on top of each other, making sure the height is enough that a gremlin can't jump over it and the weight is enough that they couldn't push them over. It tested well.

Then, John retrieves a large piece of wood and sets it over the tires. He cuts a large square out of the wood and fashions a makeshift latch onto one of the open sides. Then, he reattaches the previously cut piece of food. Instant swining wood square.

Now, the bait. Grabbing several sweet, John places them on the piece of wood and ties a string to each sugary treat. He runs that line to the latch on the wood.

Now, if it works correctly, a gremlin will smell the sweet treat, climb up using the grooves of the tires and the wood, grab the treat, release the latch and fall into the tires.

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

"Nice job Crichton. Looks good."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[ninja-brat.livejournal.com]

Yuffie sat, still sniffling slightly but much more up-beat then she was, say, friday. She finally got up and found found a metal pipe with a large diamater, a piece of heavy duty wood, and some fishing line. After a moment's thought she found a latch that would shut by just force alone, some wire, and some cardboard, along with some of the sugary snacks.

She first cut the wood into covers for both sides of the pipe, leaving a bit of a natch on the side of one of the wood circles she now had. She then attached a square of the cardboard to one end of the fishing wire. She rigged the wire to make a little loop, and attached inside the pipe, close to one of the openings. The fishing line was run through the wire loop so that the cardboard square was inside the pipe.

The notched wood circle was used to seal off one end of the pipe, the fishing line goging through the notch. Yuffie then attached the other circle of wood to the other end with hinges, and attached the latch she had found a couple of times til she was sastified that the weight of the falling cover would usually latch the cover strongly. She then weighted down the cardboard square with food and tied the hinged cover back with the fishing line.

When she was done Yuffie had a pipe with an end closed off. The food on the cardboard was the bait. When the gremlin came in the pipe and took the food the hinged cover would fall down, latching and trapping the gremlin inside.

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

Mac looked over the trap and sprung it just to test it out. "Mighty fine trap there, Yuffie."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam thought about the assignment and sketched it out. Still, the sugary snacks didn't seem like the most effective lure for the trap. "Mac? Okay if I go get something that I think might work better than the snacks?"

She munched on a cookie.

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

"Whatever you want to use for bait is fine by me, Carter."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia thought for a moment, watching the other students set up elaborate latch and swinging door combinations. She had absolutely no idea how to go about getting started on something like that, but she did have another idea.

There was one possible flaw.

She raised her hand. "Mac, how intelligent are gremlins?"

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

"Ummm... Not entirely sure. I'm not an expert on the subject. Apparently they like sweet treats and dirty socks," Marty replied. "Other than that? I know to stay the heck away from them."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[soldtoarmenians]

Xander surveyed the available resources, looked at the work that had obviously gone into everyone else's projects, and... shrugged.

He retrieved an empty cardboard box from behind the recycling bin, refolded it into its proper shape, and turned it upside down. Then he grabbed a sawed-off piece of rebar, propped one corner of the box up with it, tied a long piece of twine to end of the rebar nearest the floor, carefully stacked a couple rolls of duct tape on top the base of the box to weight it down, and placed an opened Twinkie under the box.

Then he grabbed the end of the twine and moved away from the trap, whistling nochalantly. Nope, not waitin' around for any gremlins here, nuh-uh.

Hey, if it worked for Smarty A. Dingo...

{TBC}

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[soldtoarmenians]

After wandering around the shop, twine in hand, taking a closer look at everyone else's projects, Xander checked back on his own. No actual gremlin, of course, and mac was still busy talking to Nadia.

And Xander was hungry. He leaned down and recahed for the Twinkie - after all, he could always re-bait the box with some cookies...

He knocked the rebar out of the way with his elbow, and brought the box tumbling down on his hand.

Oh yeah. He'd forgotten. Nothing ever worked for Smarty A. Dingo.

"Hey Mac?" Xander called, hand still stuck under the box by way of demonstration. "I think mine's... operational. Kind of. It doesn't even require advanced user intelligence. Clearly.

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[sheltered-texan.livejournal.com]

Fred looked thoughtful for a moment debating the problem, Humane trap for bitting little buggers.

Fred walked over to the junk pile and selected a plastic pipe. Boring some holes into it just the right size for a gremlin fist to reach in. Going over to the shiney pile she selected some reflecting tape and some little mirrors to slip inside the tub. Using smaller holes punched into the back side she secured the shiney objects into the holes still leaving room for a gremlin fist to reach in.

"The gremlins reach in to grab the shiney object and then can't get their hand back out because they will refuse to let go of the object. So you have have to pick the pip up on the other end and dispose of the gremlin, let him worry about how he is going to get his hand out of the pipe but it gets rid of the gremlin and keeps you at a safe distance to dispose of it."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[nadiathesaint]

[ooc: yeah, well, Nadia did it first.... even if Fred did do it better....]

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

"Looks good Fred!"

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[suzotchka.livejournal.com]

For some reason, as soon as Ivanova heard the assignment, a voiceover started playing in her still somewhat cold-fogged cranium. "When I was a kid, my uncle used to have these great pigeons . . ."

Pigeons? What the hell did . . . oh. Brilliant! She began assembling her materials as the voiceover continued. "He had them in these two great big hutches, and sometimes he would let them all out, but he always managed to get them all back in again. You'd think that if he just left the door open, some would be flying out while others were flying in."

Ivanova used the remains of a cashbox for the body of her trap. While she had never actually encountered a gremlin, it should be the right size and she wouldn't trust anything but metal to encase it anyways. After some thought, she began to build a larger wooden shell. If it worked, it should be able to catch more than one at once.

"Well, wouldn't ya know it, but he rigged up this door that could only be opened from the ouside? It was a swinging flap, so the birds could get in, but once it closed behind them, they couldn't get out again."

Ivanova set to constructing the lid of her trap from what she could remember of her uncle's pigeon coops. It took a few tries, but she finally managed to get it to work as she wanted. She added small magnets to the flap to make it swing shut faster behind any unwary occupant. The door itself was designed so that it could be allowed to swing back and forth, so she opened it all the way to place the bait as far from the door as necessary to make sure the gremlin entered fully.

"It didn't look too impressive, but those pigeons sure stayed put when my uncle wanted them to."

It really didn't look impressive, but short of luring them into an open jumpgate she really had no other ideas. And in theory it would work wonders.

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[ex-izziebell894.livejournal.com]

Izzie goes to the rummage in the supply room. She finds a long piece of rope, an old bucket, and a short piece of a broom stick. Going over to Mac's desk she grabs a Twinkie to use as bait, although having skipped breakfast she contemplates eating it.

As she ties a piece of the rope around the broom stick, Izzie decides it would be better to do the assignment...she'll grab food later. She ties the other end of the rope to the Twinkie. Then she places the Twinkie under the bucket, props the bucket up with the broom stick.

She raises her hand. "Mac? I think I'm done."

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[iwasawesome.livejournal.com]

Lilly looks annoyed.

"Why do we have to trap gremlins? They don't harm all of us. I tink they should co-exist with us, or whatever."

Lilly vaguely reconstructs an abandoned dog carrier with a cookie inside.

"Umm, is that okay?"

Re: Assignment: [1/16]

[stykera]

Stark wasn't sure about trapping gremlins. They hadn't bothered him, after all. As long as the trap wasn't going to hurt them though, he thought it would be ok.

In case the gremlin might be full or opposed to snack foods, he took a few very shiny pieces of metal off of Mac's desk in addition to a Twinkie and a cookie. Choices ought to attract more gremlins, afer all.

After a trip to the supply room he had what he needed to make a gremlin trap. A wooden crate, with 5 sides, was easy enough to put together with some boards and a few nails. A couple of grooves were cut in the wood at the open end that his door would fit into. Some wire mesh, bent a bit, made a cover for the bait. A little more mesh and 4 wooden dowels made a door for the original box that would fall down into place and stay closed, hopefully. The construction on the crate and the door wouldn't hold up to a full-on assault by gremlins, but he thought it would hold one, provided others didn't try to break it out.

The cover for the bait held down a piece of twine that ran through a small pulley set on top of the create and then connected to a metal loop on top of the door. When the cover was lifted, the twine wouldn't be pulled tight any longer, and the door would fall into place, if all went according to plan. The door didn't fall very quickly into place when he tested it, but he thought that provided the gremlin wasn't looking behind itself at the time or didn't have a friend behind it to hold the door up, it would serve its purpose.

Open Shop/Office Hours: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

Use the shop room or talk to Mac

Re: Open Shop/Office Hours: [1/16]

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter enters, does a quick tour of the room apparently looking for something and waves to Mac.

Re: Open Shop/Office Hours: [1/16]

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

Mac waves back. "Can I help you?"

Re: Open Shop/Office Hours: [1/16]

[pyramid-is-life.livejournal.com]

Kara walks over to Mac and says, "Could you sign this drop slip for me?"

OOC:

[manofthemullet.livejournal.com]

Questions? Comments? Concerns?